Have you ever been asked, “Can you keep a secret?” Sure, you have but there’s probably not another group of people on earth who have more secrets than tournament bass anglers. Secrets that they will take to their grave! Let’s dive into the secret world of tournament bass fishing and look at the mental side — how anglers think.

It’s absolutely amazing how anglers won’t ever give up any of their secret baits or locations where they catch bass. I don’t care how long you’ve been fishing, there are just certain bits of information a tournament bass angler will never reveal, not even to his best buddies.

This is why it’s hard for one angler to trust another! It’s like opening a closet door and revealing everything you never wanted anyone to find out. Every angler thinks they know something no one else does, but if the truth be told, there are no secret baits or secret locations any more on any body of water. 

Anglers, as I have said so many times in the past, are a funny bunch. Every single tournament angler on the water is always looking for that ONE bait that no one else is throwing. That one bait that they have the utmost confidence which no matter the conditions, will catch fish. Anglers are always searching for anything that will give them a leg up on their competition. 

This is where the mental side of tournament bass fishing comes into play. Bass fishing, as so many pro anglers will tell you, is 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. This is actually what separates the average anglers from the great ones. 

The greatest angler of all time, Kevin Van Dam, once told me that if you believe in the bait you’re throwing, you’ll fish that bait totally different than one you don’t believe in. Confidence in bass fishing goes a long way in catching bass!

That’s another key word in tournament bass fishing — confidence. It’s funny how this one word is crucial for anything we do in life. It’s a word that can make you average, or great. 

Again, I reference a conversation I had with Kevin Van Dam when I asked if he believed in adding scent to the bait he’s fishing?  His answer was not what I was expecting when he reversed the question and asked me if I believed in adding scent to my baits? 

My answer was “yes.” I do think it makes a difference in the number of bites I get in a day. He then said, “That’s all that matters; if you believe in it, use it! Because the more you believe in what you’re doing, the better you ‘ll fish that bait! It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, it only matters what you think.”

So, I guess you could say that the best-kept secret of any angler is not a certain bait or location on any body of water, but it’s the confidence they have in what they’re doing! 

Ethan Zuckerman is a name you are probably unfamiliar with, but there is little doubt that you have interacted with his invention. Almost everyone on the planet has had to deal with Ethan’s invention. Let me explain.

In 1993, Ethan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In 1994, Ethan dropped out of graduate school and focused on what was the newest technological craze, the World Wide Web. These days, we call it the internet. Until mid-1993, there were only about 50 websites in existence, but it snowballed shortly thereafter. Within a year, the number of websites grew into the thousands. (In October 2025, there were over 1.2 billion websites worldwide, and a new website was built about every three seconds.)

In the first year of the internet boom, Ethan and a couple of his friends in Williamstown began building an internet-based company called Tripod. Their intention was to provide content and services for graduates, what Ethan described as “tools for life.” The website was popular, but it was not making enough money to cover expenses. At its peak in the mid-1990s, about 15 million people visited their website daily. Although the number of visitors was certainly impressive, few people bought anything from the company. Ethan and his partners switched from trying to sell products to trying to get customers to pay for a subscription to gain access to their content. It was not successful. They tried to sell content in an online magazine format, but that failed too. As a last resort, they turned to advertisers, just as many other popular websites had done. Finally, they were making a hefty profit.

Then, a problem arose. A major car company which he refused to name purchased an ad that was placed on numerous websites indiscriminately. Executives at the car company were surprised and angered when their company’s ad appeared at the top of a popular pornographic website. They feared that the public would think that they were promoting pornography which could have destroyed the company’s reputation. Ethan began working to find a way to continue to have advertisements for websites but in a way that they seemed somewhat disconnected from the content on the website. After a period of trial and error, Ethan invented something the world had never seen before. Within a short time, his invention became almost inescapable. It also became one of the most hated inventions in history. In 1999, Ethan and his partners sold their company, and Ethan began to regret his invention. In August 2014, Ethan apologized to the world by saying, “I’m sorry. Our intentions were good.” Once opened, Pandora’s box is not easily closed. Ethan’s invention still pops up on computer screens across the world. You see, Ethan was the inventor of pop-up ads.

Sources:

1. Janhoi McGregor, “The Man Who Invented Pop-Up Ads Says ‘I’m Sorry’,” Forbes.com, August 15, 2014, accessed November 9, 2025, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/08/15/the-man-who-invented-pop-up-ads-says-im-sorry/.

2. Katherine Haan, “Top Website Statistics for 2025,” Forbes.com, October 24, 2025, accessed November 9, 2025, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/website-statistics/#:~:text=There%20are%20about%201.2%20billion%20websites%20on%20the%20internet%20in%202025&text=As%20of%20October%202025%2C%20the,of%20those%20websites%20are%20active.

3. Ethan Zuckerman, “About Me,” EthanZuckerman.com, accessed November 9, 2025, https://ethanzuckerman.com/about-me/.